Will FII investment touch $2 billion-mark in 2009?

Investment by Foreign Institutional Investors in Indian equities has touched the two billion dollar-mark (nearly Rs 10,000 crore) so far this year, which includes a record single day net purchase of Rs 4,085 crore.

According to the latest available data on SEBI website, FIIs made net purchases worth $2 two billion or about Rs 9,973 crore so far in 2009, with the stock market seeing major investments in the past two weeks.

"FIIs have been in the buying mode for the last couple of months and after their initial sell-off in early 2009, have turned net buyers of Indian equities year-to-date. Positive trend is likely to continue well into FY'10," Angel Broking Head of Research Hitesh Agrawal said.

Yesterday, FIIs put in as much as Rs 4,085 crore ($838 million) in a single day with an over Rs 2,000 crore investment in shares of realty firms DLF alone.

Since the beginning of the new fiscal year, FIIs have started putting money in domestic stocks, including blue-chips like Housing Development Finance Corporation, private sector lender HDFC Bank and realty major DLF.

In May alone, FIIs made gross purchases of equities worth Rs 27,872 crore and sold shares of Rs 18,255 crore, resulting in a net investment of Rs 9,616 crore ($1.93 billion), as per the data available with SEBI.

Three foreign fund houses, Deutsche Securities Mauritius, Euro Pacific Growth Fund and Copthall Mauritius had purchased a total 9.15 crore shares representing 5.39 per cent in DLF for Rs 2,106.1 crore in open market transactions yesterday.

"We believe the positive trend will continue well into FY 2010. Notably, after having reduced their stake in many blue-chip companies in FY 2009 on account of the global liquidity shortage and economic slowdown concerns, FIIs are now coming back into market," Agrawal added.

The previous week also recorded the biggest weekly infusion by FIIs in the current calendar year. With a bulk investment of Rs 1,491 crore in a single day, FIIs remained net buyers in equities in the remaining days.

FIIs have turned net buyers from last week of April, after pulling out a hefty Rs 52,987 crore from Indian stock markets in 2008, which saw Sensex plunging 51 per cent.

Earlier, two Foreign fund houses Capital Group and Sansar Capital Mauritius bought HDFC shares worth Rs 316 crore, while Deutsche Securities bought Rs 422 crore shares of HDFC Bank.

Agrawal said if no further bad news comes, the world wide the markets would revive by 2010 if FII buying spree continues.

"Pre-empting this, FIIs will look at increasing their stakes in firms that are best placed to ride the recovery and large-cap stocks are preferred ones to begin with," he added.

Agencies